Driving a fuel-efficient car: 6 months in

I've been driving the Yaris for a little over 6 months now. I've tracked every tank of gas, and my average mileage is about 39mpg. I've gotten as high as 42mpg and as low as 36, but the average over the long haul is 39 miles per gallon, so that's not bad.

Except that things could have been so much better.

This evening Shirley and I watched the movie Who Killed the Electric Car. Back around 1980 I worked in a music store with a guy who drove one of these. I have no idea what the car cost or who made it, but it was fine for my colleague, who lived fairly close to the store and just needed easy around-town transportation. And there were various electric cars produced by the big auto makers, but through the mix of oil company greed, auto company short-sighted greed (quite rational focus on profit if you don't give a hoot about national security nor the environment), Bush administration actions, and other schmuckery ...the electric car efforts were killed.

Toyota was among the big companies that killed their electric car projects (an electric RAV4) once the US companies were stopping their own projects. But Toyota and Honda did move forward with their hybrid cars (US manufacturers abandoned hybrid work, only recently making some efforts at hybrid catch-up). So now, of course, Toyota is king of hybrids with the Prius, and will quite probably have a plug-in hybrid Prius in 2009. Sigh. The US companies had the skills, they had the technology, and they had the momentum ...but they blew it in favor of what we've seen far too often: the quest for short-term profits, at the exclusion of longer range thinking.

Hydrogen powered cars is just a ridiculous idea (from a consumer standpoint that is). Best estimates are that with a few miracles, they might be viable in 30 years. Or we could have had widely available electric cars on the road today.

Not being able to afford a Prius (and actually I would have preferred a Honda Insight if they were still on the market), I opted for the car model that got the best mileage at the time, and at an affordable price: the Yaris. And I've not been disappointed.

I especially look forward to 5 or so years from now when I truly believe we will have not only plug-in hybrids, but also a decent selection of completely electric vehicles available.

Doug Tudor: our next US Congressman

It has been my pleasure and honor to meet Mr Doug Tudor and to chat with him on several occasions. Doug is running for United States Congress, to represent Florida's 12th District. The seat is currently held by Adam Putnam. OK, so what do I know about Doug?

Doug retired from the US Navy in February 2008. He had reached the rank of Master Chief, an E9 - the highest rank for an enlisted man. PBS ran a great series recently called "Carrier" (about life aboard an aircraft carrier), and one of the gents on the ship described a Master Chief this way: "If you're gonna make Master Chief, you pretty much gotta get up every day for 20 years saying, 'Today I'm gonna kick a little a--.'" That is the kind of man I want representing me in Congress. Someone who has proven his ability to maintain discipline and focus and tenacity over a long period of time. Someone who has worked his way up, proving and reproving himself every single day for years. Doug's website includes much more detail about his distinguished career, but one item that I find quite pertinent today is that along with other extensive travels, Doug has been to Iraq 33 times. As a military man, and someone who has seen Iraq firsthand many times, Doug is uniquely positioned to render a very informed opinion about our involvement there. What else? Well, Doug holds an Executive Juris Doctorate from Concord University School of Law. If someone's going to be writing laws and voting on laws, it makes good sense to have studied law. We've now established that Doug has dedicated decades to serving our country, that he has worked for a living, and that he is very well-educated. What about his positions on the issues?

Doug has outlined his positions on his website's Issues page. In addition to discussing National Security as his top priority, some other of Doug's positions with which I strongly agree include:

• Fiscal responsibility. We need to get back to paying attention to the nation's finances, and Doug is committed to working toward a balanced budget and responsible spending
• Access to high-quality healthcare for all Americans
• Stimulation of the economy, improved national security, better environmental quality through development of renewable domestic energy sources
• Adherence to and support of the United States Constitution

Please take a moment to visit the website of Mr Doug Tudor. And please contribute to Doug's campaign. Unlike Adam Putnam, Doug does not have millions of dollars of family money; he is a working man who will truly represent us! To put Doug in Washington, we need to put some dollars in the campaign. Please help finally get Florida and the country the representation we need and deserve.

Kidde smoke alarm: beep 4 times ...off and on

Man, this was driving us nuts. Sometime over the past couple of weeks, one of our smoke alarms started misbehaving. It would beep 4 times, each beep about 30 seconds after the prior beep ...and then stop. And then it would do this again randomly through the day and night. This would happen a few times a day.

The smoke alarms (we have 7 of them) are wired together with the house current, and each also have a 9v battery. We tried changing the batteries, blowing them each out with compressed air, testing them all, and nothing worked. So yesterday I bought a new one and replaced the offending smoke alarm. That made things worse.

Last night Shirley heard the thing go through it's little cycle twice within 1/2 hour or so ...conveniently at around 2:30am. So since she was awake anyway, she searched the web and found this posting from an electrician (scroll to the bottom of that page).

We had recently changed the batteries in the bedroom smoke alarms (4 of those), so for the other 3, we followed the steps listed by the electrician. For each smoke alarm:

1. Remove the smoke alarm from the ceiling (twist counter-clockwise, and then pinch the 3-wire plug to release the wire plug, freeing the smoke alarm)
2. Remove the old battery
3. Press and hold the TEST button. The smoke alarm started to beep and then the sound very quickly trailed off to near silence
4. Insert the new battery
5. Plug the 3-wire plug back into the smoke alarm and re-mount it on the ceiling

Our house is again nice and quiet :)

Laparoscopic Hernia Repair - 4 days after

The surgery was Monday (earlier post). Today is Friday. Independence Day here in the USA. And I am feeling a bit more independence. On Monday, I was taking 2 vicodin every 4 hours (actually a generic substitute - Hydrocodone/APAP). I did not want to be on this med for very long, so on Tuesday I cut that down to 1 tablet every 4 hours. On Wednesday it was 1/2 a tablet every 4 hours or so. Yesterday I took a couple of Advil a few times. Today is med-free.

I was told that vicodin can make it hard to poop. Understatement. They should tell folks that taking vicodin is like filling your colon with concrete. On Wednesday, I drank about a cup of prune juice an hour, eventually consuming 3 pints of the stuff, and finally that evening things seemed back to normal. Not like I'd downed a ton of colon-blow or something, mind you ...just back to normal! Wow.

I've been sleeping in the family room on a recliner, since that makes it easier to get up and down. Tonight I plan to go back to the real bed and see about getting a decent night's sleep.

The exercise plan is starting to take shape. Today's rigorous workout was a gentle stroll around the block. I may go out again this evening for a stroll. That beats the 'laps' I was doing yesterday through the house to try to get more movement. I'm hoping that by sometime next week I can be back to doing 3 miles a day ...even though it will be via very easy walking, no running at an incline on the treadmill :)

So the pain is quite bearable, the insides seem to be working, the body is getting back to burning a few calories (I think I burned 37 calories today), and the gut-bloat (from being 'inflated' for the procedure) is almost gone. The followup appointment is a week from today (11th July), at which time the stitches will be removed from the 4 small incisions. And at that time I'll again ask the doc about resumption of real workouts. He's advising to pretty much take all of July off from working out. That is hard! But going through this again would be worse, so I'll follow his advice.

Laparoscopic hernia repair

My body has told me in no uncertain terms that even though laparoscopic surgery might not slice one open as widely as 'regular' surgery, it is still definitely surgery.

I had an inguinal hernia on the right side. I was born with it, it was repaired many years ago when I was 3 years old, and now it was in need of repair again. Last Monday I visited the surgeon (Dr Ronald Delgado in Brandon Florida, and he is wonderful!). He discussed the procedure, we scheduled the time, and I went for some pre-op tests (EKG, chest x-ray, and some blood tests). I was told to have no food nor drink of any kind (not even water) after midnight prior to surgery day, and yesterday arrived at the hospital at 6:30am to prep for the 9am procedure.

There were various forms to be signed (of course :) ...then an IV catheter was inserted. My veins tend to hide when it is cooler, and Shirley and I did feel that the room temp was rather frigid ...so the poor nurse had to abandon the first attempt and go for the side of the wrist (which is usually a good spot on me, but she wanted to try the wider part of the forearm first).

After meeting the nurses who would be in the operating room and the anesthesiologist and the surgeon, they hooked me up to the IV bag. Since it was known by that time that I was missing my morning coffee, they kindly labeled the IV bag "COFFEE" ...it still wasn't the same. And they wheeled me towards the operating room.

The next thing I knew I was in post-op. Apparently, after knocking me out, they shaved my "down-under", inserted a breathing tube down the throat, a catheter up the urethra, made 4 incisions, inflated my belly, and repaired the hernia, then closed me up and removed the catheter and breathing tube (I'm glad that I don't remember getting those inserted!!).

The pain has been manageable, thanks to generic Vicodin. I've started easing off of those ...very carefully. The hardest part by FAR was peeing. I don't know if it was due to everything being numbed, or what, but I was warned about this by several others. They did have me pee before leaving the hospital, but it was probably no more than a spoonful; that at least showed that things were working, albeit nowhere near normal. We were probably back home by 1pm yesterday afternoon, and by mid-afternoon I felt like I had a gallon in my bladder. I tried various things to help the flow, but I think the main thing that helped was just time. By early this morning things were much closer to normal -- thank GOD :)

OK, this will get a little graphic now if you're squeamish. I had a devil of a time finding details and pics from folks who had had this procedure done, so I wanted to provide the details that I had been wanting prior to surgery. The first 2 pics are pre-op. The 3rd pic was provided by the doc, and shows a great view of my appendix, and of the nylon mesh that was used to patch the hernia. Then there's a pic post-op at the hospital. The last two pics are of the wounds ...one with the incisions covered by bandages, and the final pic with just the "Steri-Tape" covering the stitched incisions (I was told to leave the Steri-Tape in place, but to change the gauze daily). I've got some extra fat, but I'm not as round as the images make things appear. Honestly :) ...The final pic shows a little 'deflation' as compared to the pic from yesterday afternoon. I don't know how long it takes for the air/gas that was used to inflate the belly to dissipate.

Pics: